“Caperna has made statements about his role in both crimes,” Kelly said.

Caperna will appear in court in Providence today for a hearing on returning to face charges in New York.

Kelly said Caperna was found with items belonging to the victims.

Police said this included either credit cards or ID cards.

John Lomax, a desk clerk at the motel, said detectives told him they tracked down Caperna by tracing calls made on one of the victims’ cell phones, which he allegedly stole.

Police found three cell phones in Caperna’s possession. They also found a silver handgun in his motel room, matching the gun used in both Manhattan attacks.

Caperna also had jewelry that did not belong to the victims, police said.

“We are looking at other cases this individual may be involved in,” Kelly said.

Police said Caperna drove to the motel yesterday morning in a Jeep with three other people inside.

When he entered the lobby on his way to his room, Lomax signaled police and they swooped in and nabbed the suspected rapist.

Caperna checked in to the $54.80-a-night room Saturday, using the name Manuel Santiago.

He told Lomax he’d just gotten off the bus and was on the way to visit his grandmother.

Lomax said Caperna flashed a wad of cash when he checked in, but cops said he had only $50 with him when he was arrested.

Kelly said Caperna was arrested twice in Providence last August, when he was charged with sexual assault and petty larceny.

Caperna first struck in New York on March 10, when he pulled a gun on a Chinese foreign exchange student returning to her dorm at 10 p.m., police said.

He forced her to withdraw money from an ATM at a deli and then dragged her into an alley and raped her, cops said.

The pattern was similar when he allegedly attacked a second time, victimizing a woman as she tried to hail a cab on 10th Street and Third Avenue at 6 a.m.

He took her at gunpoint to a deli, where she took money from an ATM, and he then forced her into a basement landing on 11th Street where he raped her, cops said.

“It was a tense situation. The place was surrounded by cops,” said Lomax of Caperna’s arrest. “They grabbed him and handcuffed him. He put his head down as if saying, ‘It’s over.’ When he walked off I said, ‘Bye- bye.’ I wanted him to know I helped put him away.”

While the overall crime rate continues to decline, rapes in New York have jumped an alarming 9 percent this year, police said.